MLS Week 24 Notes

1) The Open Cup final is Wednesday in DC. Couple interesting things here. Sebastien Le Toux is currently tied for the most goals scored in this year's tournament. Unless somebody else scores a few, he's going to win at least a share of the Open Cup golden boot for the third consecutive year. Now if only he could finish in MLS. Also, if the Sounders are victorious, they'll be the first team from Washington state to win the Open Cup title. Currently, teams from 13 states and DC have won in the 95 tournaments prior to this one. See here for a list of the top US Open Cup finishes by state through 2007 (needs to be updated). 2) Last night's Super Classico was an ugly game, no doubt about it (regardless of what Don Garber tweets). I suppose a low scoring affair was on the cards, since both teams are now 1-2 in the league for low scoring games. Los Angeles currently is averaging 2.13 total goals (for and against) in its games, while Chivas USA is right behind at 2.14 per game. There's a couple of other teams right behind as well; Houston and Seattle are at 2.17. The all time low is probably out of reach. It's currently held by the 2004 Colorado Rapids at 2.03 goals per game. That was the year Joe Cannon seemed unbeatable. To break the record, LA would need to have only nine goals in their last six games. A few more 1-0 and 0-0 results aren't a huge stretch, but I'd still say the odds at breaking the record are really low. 3) However, the record for the best team to miss out on the playoffs seems like a decent bet to be broken. That's not too hard, since only one team with a winning record has ever missed out (counting shootouts as draws) . Also, up until this year MLS was guaranteed to have at least one below average team in the playoffs each year. Finally, at 8/15 that's no longer the case. Anyway, the best non-playoff team was the 2005 Kansas City Wizards at 11-9-12, or 1.406 PPG. That was the year Chivas and RSL boosted everyone else's record with their ineptitude. The Wizards were actually 11-5-8 at one point, but went winless over the final eight games. To break the record this year, one team will have to miss the playoffs with 43 points. With the huge mass of teams fighting to get in, I think that's more likely to happen than not.